Henri Matisse
' Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse' (31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French artist, known for his use of color and his fluid and original draftsmanship. He was a draftsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter. Matisse is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp, as one of the three artists who helped to define the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the twentieth century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture. Although he was initially labelled a Fauve (wild beast), by the 1920s he was increasingly hailed as an upholder of the classical tradition in French painting. His mastery of the expressive language of colour and drawing, displayed in a body of work spanning over a half-century, won him recognition as a leading figure in modern art. Giveaway Clues # Leader of the Fauvist Art Movement. Tossup Questions # A woman arranges flowers over a bowl of fruit in this man's first major painting, The Dinner Table, while a view of boats on a pink sea dominates his work The Open Window. He pasted uniformly colored rectangles into a spiral in The Snail, an example of his paper cuts. Another of his paintings is sometimes called The Dessert and shows a room in which the wall and the tablecloth are the same color. The background of this man's The Joy of Life includes the scene from his most famous work, in which five figures hold hands in front of a blue and green background. For 10 points, name this artist of The Red Room and The Dance, an important figure in the Fauvist movement. # This artist took the title of one painting from the refrain of Baudelaire's "Invitation to a Voyage," and that work is based on the landscape near Paul Signac's house. This artist was working on a sculpture but accidentally broke it, which inspired him to paint that sculpture in a very angular form that he called Souvenir de Biskra. This artist of Luxury, Serenity and Pleasure painted some (*) Blue Nudes as well as another work in which the tablecloth blends into the wallpaper behind a maid who is arranging fruits on a table for the title Dessert. This artist included one of his own works in the yellow background of a multicolored scene filled with many nudes. For 10 points, name this artist of The Joy of Life and La Danse, the foremost painter of fauvism. # This painter created four crayon self-portraits for a lecture that argues "Exactitude is Not Truth." At the bottom of one notable painting by this artist, a woman plays two flute-like instruments at the same time. In the background of that painting, two goats are positioned nearby another figure playing with a wind instrument. This man's experiment with divisionist technique can be seen in his depiction of the French Riviera, which is titled after Baudelaire's concepts of Luxury, Peace, and Pleasure. A window to the outside world can be seen in his painting of a maid placing fruit and wine on a table, which is titled Harmony in Red. He was the leader of a group that included Raoul Dufy and Andre Derain as members. The background of another of his paintings depicts five figures cavorting in a circle. For 10 points, identify this painter of The Joy of Life and The Dance, the leader of the Fauvists. # In one of this artist's paintings, a woman in black sets a plate of fruit on a tablecloth patterned with blue vines. His painting of five nude figures joining hands in a circle can be seen in the background of his Le bonheur de vivre, or The Joy of Life. This artist of The Red Room and The Dance is associated with Georges Rouault and Andre Derain due to his involvement in a movement named after the French word for (*) "beasts." For 10 points, name this French artist who pioneered Fauvism. # This artist decorated the house of his longtime patron Sergei Shchukin, who also commissioned a second version of an earlier painting in which the central nudes are painted red instead of skin tones. The French stockbroker Genevieve Habert noticed that one of his final works, Le Bateau, had been hung upside in the MOMA for over a month. In one of this man's paintings, a woman arranges fruit on a table that blends in with the red wall behind it. He painted his wife Amelie Noellie with a stripe dissecting her face in The Green Line and with fruit on her head in Woman with a Hat. For 10 points, name this French painter who, with Andre Derain, led the Fauvist movement.